Microsoft is planning to make a public Release Candidate 1 (RC 1) test build of ILM2 available in the third quarter of this year, according to a posting on the company's "Server and Tools Business News Bytes Blog." Testers already have access to private RC builds.

Microsoft officials attributed the delay to a need for further testing. Or, in Microspeak:

"To ensure high quality, usability and customer satisfaction ILM '2' needs to be validated in long-running live deployments before release."

(Given ILM2's integration with SharePoint, it might also be the case that the delay in delivery of Office 14 to 2010 is affecting ILM's release schedule... But if that is the case, no one at Microsoft is saying that publicly.)

Last summer, when Microsoft delivered a first public beta of ILM 2, company officials said to expect the final release in the first quarter of 2009.

ILM2 is designed to help business users integrate "heterogeneous identity infrastructure, including directories, databases, and line of business applications" via password management, certificate management, user provisioning and other related functions. The new version will provide an Office-style interface and give end users more control over permissions, policies and access.

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